Company details

HEADCOUNT

25-99

ORG TYPE

Startup

SECTOR

Technology & Digital

WEBSITE

https://www.oriolenetworks.com

About the company

Oriole Networks is a photonic networking startup building “full-photonic” network technology for AI and HPC data centres, aiming to move data using light rather than energy-hungry electrical switching. The company positions the work around speeding up training and inference while cutting data-centre energy use and latency. Oriole Networks is a University College London spinout founded in 2023, and the public narrative centres on scaling PRISM and getting early-stage products into customers’ hands. Public company databases place the team in the tens, with some listings indicating around 70 employees.

Locations and presence

Oriole Networks lists a London HQ, a Paignton engineering hub at the Electronics and Photonics Innovation Centre, and a Palo Alto satellite office to stay close to US customers. Many current roles are marked hybrid with a base office location.

Palpable Score

61.0

/ 100

Oriole Networks has a real early-career doorway via a defined Graduate Engineering Roles intake for September 2026 and a plainly described candidate journey. The score is capped because most day-to-day roles still look experienced-hire, salary ranges are not published, and there’s little independent public evidence on early-career progression or retention.

Pillar 1: Early-career access

Score

12.0

/ 20

The company runs a Graduate Engineering Roles intake for September 2026 covering multiple disciplines (Electronics, Mechanical Design, NPI, Test Hardware, Test Software), which is a clear 0–1 year pathway.
Oriole Networks’ live “Junior Mechanical CAD Engineer” role still asks for three years of experience, so the “junior” label does not translate into true entry-level access.
The company’s non-graduate engineering openings (for example Software Engineer and FPGA roles) ask for hands-on embedded or production experience, which reduces access for brand-new grads outside the graduate intake.

Pillar 2: Hiring fairness and transparency

Score

14.3

/ 20

The company lays out a simple candidate journey: apply, first interview with the talent team, then a hiring-manager interview, and role-dependent assessments.
Oriole Networks flags that some roles include a test or assessment, but the time burden and evaluation criteria are not described in a way candidates can plan around.
The company warns recruitment agencies against unsolicited CV submissions, which reduces behind-the-scenes duplicate submissions and fee disputes that can create messy candidate experiences.

Pillar 3: Learning and support

Score

11.3

/ 20

The company’s graduate role pages describe hands-on work across circuits, CAD, test systems, and instrument-control software, which can create fast skills growth for early-career engineers.
Oriole Networks describes flexible working with core hours and a trust-based approach to scheduling, which can help juniors manage learning time if managers follow through.
The company does not publish concrete onboarding ramps, mentoring expectations, or review cadence for graduate or junior hires, so learning support is hard to verify before joining.

Pillar 4: Pay fairness and stability

Score

14.7

/ 20

The company advertises “competitive” salaries alongside an employee stock option scheme, which suggests a stable package rather than cash-only startup pay.
Oriole Networks lists private medical insurance plus a cash health plan, which is a meaningful support signal for early-career hires budgeting for healthcare.
The company does not publish salary ranges in public job ads, which limits pay fairness transparency for graduates comparing offers.

Pillar 5: Early-career outcomes

Score

8.7

/ 20

The company has limited independent employee outcome data (reviews, promotion stories, or retention signals), so early-career progression cannot be validated from public sources.
Oriole Networks has externally reported momentum through a 2024 Series A funding round tied to expanding the workforce and scaling the technology, which supports the likelihood of role breadth but not promotion outcomes.
The company’s LinkedIn footprint shows a small, growing organisation, but public sources still don’t show repeat early-career cohorts beyond the 2026 graduate intake or clear junior-to-mid promotion patterns.